Floyd Landis Guilty - Loses 2006 Tour de France Title

It's official. The Associated Press is reporting that Floyd Landis has lost his doping case and will relinquish his 2006 Tour de France title and will face a two-year ban from cycling (that would be given the effective date of January 30, 2007). However, he can still appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The AP article mentions Landis has already spent $2 million of his own money defending his innocence, and will need to spend more to take his appeal to the next level.

The arbitrators voted two to one in favor of upholding the positive tests.

I've long believed that doping is common in cycling and also in other sports. However just because riders are doping doesn't mean that the odds should be stacked against them in doping cases. USADA's 35-0 record to me is more about rules that assure they win cases than it is that they had solid cases. To me the sloppiness of the lab is worse than Landis doping if that was really the case. They didn't prove it to me.

The lab's behavior was beyond terrible. Nothing it says about Landis' samples should be trusted. Nothing at all.

When someone is to be convicted of doping, people like dr. logan, ultrarob, and myself want proof. All we have in this case is the word of an unethical, ill-run lab and the win-at-all-costs anti-doping authorities.